Eldorado + Tepeh Tower

Mounting the DA2 on the ice summit

Aug 24, 2026

We left Cascade River Road at 4am Monday morning and made good time up to Eldorado, reaching the summit by 9:30am. The remnant ice summit looked a lot taller than I remembered it in previous summers, and that may be because I’d always surveyed it in mid/late September in the past. Now I was there about a month earlier.

I set up the DA2 on the summit anyways and logged one hour of data. By 10:30am we headed down, and decided to tag a bonus peak.

The route

We first tried to find a way up Deans Spire, but the moat was too big to access the base of the climb. Instead we went and scrambled up Tepeh Tower, which didn’t have any moat issues.

There appeared to be some uncertainy on whether the third class peak or the tower just to the east was taller and thus the true summit of Tepeh Tower. With my sight level I measured the eastern tower was slightly shorter, likely by a few feet.

On Tepeh Tower

Just to be certain, we decided to climb that tower also. We climbed the southwest face, and it was low 5th class rock that was very loose. I led up and knocked a few rocks down on the way unintentionally.

On the summit I slung a boulder, then used the sight level to measure the third class peak to the west was taller, likely a few feet. This matched my previous observation, so the third class peak is definitely taller and is the true summit of Tepeh Towers. I later analyzed LiDAR data to see it is 8405.3ft.

We rapped off a newly-slung boulder, then hiked back out to the truck in time to beat the 8pm bridge closure near Marblemount.

Since it was too early to get a measurement I could fairly compare to previous measurements, I planned to return in September to try again.